The Crying of Lot 49

"San Narciso lay further south, near L.A. Like many named places in California it was less an identifiable city than a grouping of concepts- census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts shopping nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway. But it had been Pierce's domicile, and headquarters: the place he'd begun his land speculating in ten years ago, and so put down the plinth course of capital on which everthing afterward had been built, however rickety or grotesque, toward the sky; and that, she supposed would set the spot apart, give it an aura. But if there was any vital difference between it and the rest of Southern California, it was invisible on first glance... Nothing was happening... She thought of Mucho, her husband, trying to believe in his job. Was it something like this he felt, looking through the soundproof glass at one of his colleagues with a headset clamped on and cueing the next record with movements stylized as the handling of chrism, senser, chalice might be for a holy man, yet really tuned in to the voice, voices, the music, its message, surrounded by it, digging it, as were all the faithful it went out to; did Mucho stand outside Studio A looking in, knowing that even if he could hear it he couldn't believe in it?" -Pg. 14

This passage describes Oedipa's first impression of San Narciso, a town where Pierce's hope and Mucho's despair are present everywhere. Oedipa thinks of both when she sees this town because she sees how Pierce transformed such a rustic, unnoticeable place into something that was a place he called home, had his share of secrets, and was almost happy. But then she thinks of Mucho, who looks at the world from the outside, and he can see the homes, secrets, and happiness, but he never believes in these things. He just can't.

I think that this embodies the way the American Dream can work. There are the people who sit on the outside and watch the dreams being built. Mucho, like many people, doesn't allow himself to truly want success, either out of ignorance or the knowledge that he might fail. I feel like that is even more present in today's society. People watch the rich and famous get what they work for, think about how much they want their success, but don't put forth the effort to get it. The only difference between the two is that the people who go for their dreams believe they will make it in the end. Mucho is an all too reliable character; he falls into depression from being unfulfilled, loses his wife to everything else that guarantees to be more interesting than him, and/or puts up with jobs that slowly crush his spirit. This also embodies the time, since many middle-class families had husbands who worked monotonous corporate jobs and wound up with nothing to show for their lives.

The one thing that I found funny was that Mucho got the girl instead of Pierce. During a conversation between Metzger and Oedipa, she asks, "'What the hell didn't he own?'" to which Metzger says, "'You tell me.'" This could reflect how people tend to pick the safe things in life. They want the people who they know they can fall back on, not the people they have to take a chance with. While Pierce was dangerous and caring, Mucho was reliable and distant. Or it could reflect the way people spare their feelings, once again, out of fear. Oedipa is equally like Mucho, only she is unsatisfied in the world of love. She saw what it was like to be with Pierce, enjoyed it, but did not believe that they could be together, as they broke up. But I have a feeling that Pierce still had a thing for her, as he left her the executor of his will.

The whole American Spirit is the prospect of change. We all want change in some way, look at Obama's entire presidential campaign. Pierce helps embody that aspect of America because he transformed that town. While it was not by the most moral means, he still obtained his success and made San Narciso something. He saw the possibilities in small things, which is not easy.

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